Newbie needs honest opinion on P2W accusation

Communications Center General Discussion
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I know it hurts sometimes.

But it would be very helpful for an important decision.

First of all, I’m an absolute newbie on eve-online. It’s years ago I played some hours in the evening for just one week. Actually it was very interesting but couldn’t catch me away from other mmo’s at that time.

But at the moment I’m looking for a mmo which is still faithful towards hardly earned equip and skill.

I don’t understand precisely what you can get for PLEX or IKS. But every counter argument against any P2W accusation ends with “it’s useless if you have no skill, duh”.

So, let’s consider a stand-off between two long-standing, insanely addicted, pro eve-online junkies with exactly the same skill and experience. Let’s call them Harry and Larry.

Larry just spend a tremendous amount of money in PLEX and god whatever he can get for money. He just stuffed every coin in the most beneficial upgrades he could get for his ship.

Harry didn’t. He’s happy with his omega account and feels safe with his skill in his mind.

Who would win?

And please, don’t try to corrupt the situation. Please don’t come along with “…that could never happen…”, “…equal skill isn’t a real thing… “ etc etc…

Just consider exactly this kind of stand-off. Take it as given. Without additional abstractions about ship type, length or kinds and amounts of weapons.

Just these two guys, with same experience, same skill. But one tries to buy some ease.

It’s just a principle thing and I would be so grateful if even only some you could give a straight and honest answer.

And yes, English isn’t my first language. Feel free to have fun with any feeble-minded syntax.

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There would be no difference if they have exactly the same skill and experience.

If they have the same skill and experience, then they would both have competitive fits and ships. For ease of argument, if in this hypothetical scenario both parties have exactly the same skills and experience, then it is feasible that they would end up with the same ship.

So there is no difference. Eve has issues with being mismanaged by CCP, but being blatently P2W is not one of them.

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I don’t think there is anything in EVE that is P2W, right now. Skill injectors do not suddenly mean a player will win in PVE or especially PVP. I think it takes a good amount of time, support from a good corp and good corp mates, reading posts, watching youtube videos about EVE for tips and tricks, spending time in null and perhaps most importantly willing to lose ship after ship until you get that first win and many more after that.

Well maybe that could be the P2W aspect by dumping real money into the game to buy ship upon ship, but that’s something that could be done all along in EVE. And even then, a bling ship will not win the match. If anything, I’ve learned multiboxing, being a backstabbing treacherous traitor to your corp could be very lucrative. But none of that is P2W.

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To be fair - bling matters, but only to a certain degree. That was very obvious in abyss 1v1 pvp. But then for every bling setup people could always find something way cheaper to infinitely annoy/stall/win the fight against those bling setups…

In open space of eve fair 1v1 fight is almost never a thing.

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5

lets take your example here. first off I need to address that its not really an applicable example to a game like eve, because while skill and experience certainly play a part there is much MUCH more to it, friends, intel, etc etc.

now ignoring that, and dealing with a purely hypothetical 1v1 scenario, if its just a random encounter, it comes down to luck and who is flying the better ship for that particular engagement (although smart pilots wouldn’t take a fight like that to begin with, or would gtfo the second they saw a ship they couldn’t take on scan)

if its something pre-arranged, then it would come down to whoever manages to predict the ship/fit his opponent is going to fly and fits out a proper counter to it. now its POSSIBLE, that the person who is cc warrioring it could bling out his ship and slightly increase his odds in a bad matchup, but the same could be said of any experienced player with isk to burn. and it still doesn’t guarantee victory.

if somehow in the above scenario they both wind up perfectly matched somehow, then it would all come down to who makes a mistake first. and taking that even further if, somehow, neither pilot makes a single mistake, then and only then would the person with a blingier ship win (which again, could be achieved in game or with a credit card)

so as you can see, the standard pay to win style just doesn’t mesh well with the way eve on the whole works, everything you could pay for with a CC you can also just buy with IG isk. and you have to drill things down to rather unrealistic levels of “fairness and luck” before blinging out your ship would have any larger effect on the outcome than any other variable.

Eve is not pay to win by any means, at worst you could say its “pay to progress” since beyond a certain point you will need a subscription to keep training, and you can pay extra to speed things along. but thats no different from any other mmo from the subscription era, with skill injectors just being a catch up mechanic similar to level boosts in other games. even then, you can just use IG currency for skill injectors, and even your subscription, meaning you don’t ever NEED to pay.

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6

Go and ask somewhere else, forum is CCP minions playground, no truth here …

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The player with money would win, assuming same RL skills, because of ISK concerns:

  1. He would have better equipment. He would bring AT ship with top abyssal officer mods, while the other would be flying pirate/t2 with t2/faction/deadspace mods.
  2. He would be able to inject all somewhat relevant skills, while the other player wouldn’t have everything maxed, just the more relevant stuff. Win of two equal players in same ships and fits could be defined by say minmatar drone spec 5 vs 4, even if it is a frig duel with 3 unbonused light drones.
  3. Possible difference in implants - everything top, vs perhaps mid-grade ones.

However, if you give both the very same amount of ISK to prepare for duel, it would be a fair fight. Where fair fight in EVE is a rare sight anyway.
Additionally, mostly the same amount of P2W is present in EVERY MMO or even every multiplayer game where you have progression. WOW was somewhat famous for inability to trade top items, but what happens then: you pay a group to let you run with them. They are good enough to carry you through all but the hardest challenges so you get near top equipment. Your opponent, not using such services, will have worse gear and lose the duel, assuming same skill.

Finally, the general concern isn’t that EVE is a P2W game now - it is that the game is slowly becoming P2W. Several years ago, ability to buy skillpoints copied from “time wasting” mobile games. There was a huge outrage over CONCORD ships being initially unique to attendees of EVE fest. More recently, mutaplasmids brought slot machine.

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EvE PVP is Rock, Paper, Scissors basically.
Given there are two pilots wit the exact same amount of skillpoints, individual Skill and experience - the one with the better matching ship (not the more expensive) for that fight would win or the one that just has his lucky day.

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Blah blah blah , older pilot will have beter skills and beter eqiped ships and will crush any new player while playing LOL on second monitor.

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“Two long-standing, insanely addicted, pro eve-online junkies” do not exist. They’re either short-standing, or not insanely addicted and thus not junkies. We’re better than that and are not at fault for the people CCP is bringing in nowadays.

In any case does your question makes absolutely no sense in the real world.

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Does that include what you say as well? Or only the opinions you disagree with?

I don’t disagree at all with the sentiment of what you are saying, but Eve is still as it always was. A subscription game, with a subscription business model. Encouraging alpha pilots (which CCP literally describes as trial accounts) to sub is their business model.

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Spending real money to get isk to buy shiney ships and equipment is a horrible idea, i have watched people throw 100s of usd at the game in ships and modules and die simply undocking.

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your right, which is why I clarified that at worst you could call it that. since “Technically” a subscription model becomes a “pay to progress” model as soon as a free option is introduced. so its technically accurate, but not in any way that hasn’t been the established norm among mmo’s for decades.

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If you are expierienced and skilled, you have all the ISK ingame you need. There is no point injecting RL money after you have played a couple years.

Hence two expierienced players would come up both with the optimal fit, and fight until next downtime with no winner. Of course if you are stupid you can bling your fit and spend 10x more to get 5% better stats, which don‘t make a difference, in this setup.

Sorry I’m wrong, it makes a difference. The clever guy would break the duel deal, call his friends and kill the bling guy for the loot and don’t stop laughing.

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15

To the OP:

You seem to have misunderstood what P2W actually is.

In your example, Harry and Larry have the same everything, until Larry decides to buy $1,000 worth of plex, turn that plex into ISK by selling it on the market, and then buying the most expensive gear he can get to put on his ship.

Of course, at this point, if Harry and Larry duel, Larry will win, because he has better stronger gear on his ship, right? And since you set this completely artificial dialog up, and since the only actual possible result is “Larry will win”, then apparently all you are looking for is “Yes, Eve is P2W”.

Except it isn’t.

Everything Larry just bought, Harry can go away and grind for, beg for, scam for, trade with fleetmates for. He can have it all without spending a dime except for his time in the game.

Harry can watch videos and talk with other players, and improve his skill and tactics. Where Larry just threw money at a build, Harry can learn how a good build works, how to make a counter to another build, and what tactics it takes to crush someone who just throws money at the game.

All Larry really paid for was “Pay to reduce the grind time, to have ‘stuff’ right now” and throw a lot of bling on his ship. Then the moment he undocks to duel with Harry, five guys in Tornadoes will slaughter him and laugh all the way to the bank while they loot 3 billion worth of drops from his wreck.

Harry will sit outside the dock station, in his cheap, un-gank-worthy ship, and say “Hold on mate, I’m watching this video on how to beat bling-hounds with cheap ships”… while laughing at Larry.

So yes, in Eve, you can pay to own right now the same things that everyone else can get by playing longer, luckier or smarter. And since you didn’t learn anything by paying, you can lose those things even faster than you bought them, and then someone else will have your cool, shiny Pay-2-Bling.

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16

The only thing P2W in eve would be the skill cap at 5mil for alphas. This makes it kinda hard once you hit that cap to progress and make new means of income. But unless your me and have played for about a year and not gotten to omega your good. But the skill cap is ■■■■■■■ gay

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EVE has had a P2W element for most of the game’s history. Almost all items etc. can be traded, and there is very little in the game ISK can’t buy. Sure, there has to be some level of skill to properly utilize stuff, but that’s irrelevant. Advantages can clearly be had through spending more $$$.

Many of you arguing the static cap (for skills, items, etc.) makes it fair and not P2W… also irrelevant. Group that spends more real $$$ on the game gains clear advantage, even if just less need to grind and easier to replace losses.

Only players that have no need for more isk at all do not benefit from more isk, but even then they probably have people in their group that could use the isk.

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Aye, someone still made or looted all the stuff Larry bought. He’s giving ISK to other players for helping him avoid something boring/dangerous. It would be a different thing if the choice was between a long grind of materials to produce, say, a combat booster in-game or just throwing 15€ at the cash shop for a stack of ten.

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Every commercial game has to be P2W in some way or other, how else do they pay for the servers, datacomms, devs, support etc. ? All you’re arguing about is the form that that P2W takes - and I happen to think Eve has got the balance about right.

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I think the main point is, you can’t buy yourself ingame advantage in EvE over an experienced and well settled EvE player. There are no items, you can’t get only with cash, and higher price items have diminishing returns. This together with full loot, and strategy, experience and unfairness having a big influence on the outcome of a real fight, makes EvE quite anti-P2W.

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